


That Old Familiar Thing

by scioscribe



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Comfort of Strangers, Dubious Consent, F/M, M/M, Oral Sex, Power Dynamics, loss of voice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 21:36:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15649389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: “Wow, you sure, ah, you sure talk a lot, don’t you?  Little Mr. Chatterbox over here.”  He stroked one finger all the way around Loki’s jawline, his eyes friendly and icy at the same time.  “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re likable, but you know what I really like?  Good listeners.  Love ’em.  Can’t get enough of ’em.  I would justkillto have more good listeners around.”(The Grandmaster puts Loki on mute--with very specific conditions for him getting his voice back.  Scrapper 142 doesn't care about his predicament.  Really.  She doesn't.)





	That Old Familiar Thing

He should have seen it coming.

In a way, Loki thought—all he could really do was think, link long chains of thoughts together endlessly and bind himself more and more tightly with them—he should have seen this coming as far back as the first time Thor clicked that name around his neck like a collar.  Silvertongue.  He was comforted by the idea that this was all Thor’s fault—

Except this was the problem with not talking.  He was left alone with the churn of his own memories and he had no way to drown out the sound of the Bifrost in his ears like a waterfall, parting him from Thor but not parting Thor from Hela.  Hela who had broken Mjolnir with a touch.  Hela who was bent on destruction.

He had not meant to, but he had paved the road to Asgard for her.  And he had given her Thor.  No prize for guessing how that would turn out.

Though he supposed Thor had surprised him before.

But all right, fine, it wasn’t really Thor’s fault.  He had been in love with the sound of his own voice before Thor had ever drunkenly told a maiden that his brother spoke so prettily it was like his tongue was made of silver.  Thor trying to procure a night’s company for him.  Had that worked?  Probably not.  Their schemes seldom had.

Which was another reason he should have seen this coming.

He had thought to charm and wheedle his way into the Grandmaster’s favor.

And despite all the evidence right in front of his face, he hadn’t realized that the Grandmaster was not, in truth, a conversationalist.  He was, like Loki himself, just a man enamored of his own voice.

“Wow, you sure, ah, you sure talk a lot, don’t you?  Little Mr. Chatterbox over here.”  He stroked one finger all the way around Loki’s jawline, his eyes friendly and icy at the same time.  “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re likable, but you know what I really like?  Good listeners.  Love ’em.  Can’t get enough of ’em.  I would just _kill_ to have more good listeners around.”

He wasn’t at all sure he liked the sound of that.  “No need to go that far,” he said smoothly.  “I’m a wonderful listener when I’m in the company of someone of your substance.”

“Oh, are you?  That’s terrific, just terrific.  You wouldn’t mind proving that, of course.”

Of course not, he almost said, and then, thinking better of it, merely shook his head.

“What a good sport.”  The Grandmaster patted at his pockets.  “You’ll like this,” he said, a command more than an expression of confidence.  “Here it is.  Berellian lip balm.  Lovely people, the Berellians, really varied interests, refined tastes.  Open up a little for me, Loki.”

It was the first time he’d admitted he knew Loki’s name.  That had to be a good sign, surely?

Loki parted his lips and, for good measure, lowered his eyelashes, too, hopeful of the effect this would have.

“Cute,” the Grandmaster murmured, tracing the stick of lip balm over Loki’s mouth.  “Very cute.  Stick out your tongue.”

“I think you’ve misunderstood the purpose—”

“Ah!  I think you’re the one who’s maybe not understanding everything.”  He had a hard, polished smile, like a knife made out of bone; you could feel something had died to make that smile.  “Now, run that pretty pink tongue of yours out, sweetheart.”

He had not knelt for Hela, it was absurd to think he would bend for this madman—

Yet he had, apparently, because the Grandmaster was swiping the waxy lip balm up and down the surface of his tongue, prodding it far back into Loki’s mouth.

“You just have no gag reflex at all.”  He swiped it once across the back of Loki’s throat and then moved to his neck.  “That’s extremely intriguing.”

He painted the column of Loki’s throat up and down with the balm.  By then Loki could feel his lips tingling with a strange, prickling heat, and for some reason all he could associate it with was the Battle of New York, the horrible humiliation of it all; the hot blood as the floor had split his mouth open when the beast had slammed him about.  Then the muzzle tight around his jaw, where the Grandmaster was even now finishing off the last of the lip balm.  He put the cap back on with a theatrical flourish.

“There.  A little shiny, sure, but the full effect—if you just give it a minute, the full effect is something I’m really excited about.”

 _Then I share your enthusiasm,_ Loki tried to say.

The words did not come.

“Look at you,” the Grandmaster said admiringly.  “Gaping like a fish.  So innocent.  Well, not innocent, but… surprised?  Yeah, let’s go with surprised.  Are you surprised?”

He couldn’t even hear his own breath.  His mouth and throat and tongue were all still uncomfortably hot.

 _What did you do to me?_ But he could not say that either.

Very well, it was a game.  So he nodded.  Yes.  He was surprised.

“I knew you’d get a kick out of it.  It suits you—I won’t say you’re the strong, silent type, but maybe the, hmm, obliging silent type?  Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll tell you all about yourself.  People love to hear about themselves.”

Loki sat down in the only place available for him, a velvet pouf at the Grandmaster’s feet.  He tried to think that at least this was better than the muzzle.  He could eat and drink, anyway.  And no one would know his disgrace just by looking at him.

The Grandmaster told him all about himself.  Much of it was disturbingly accurate.

Loki only loved to hear about himself when he had written the script.

“You can still smile and nod, you know,” the Grandmaster said.  “Active listening doesn’t just go out the door because you can’t interrupt.”

 _I hate you,_ Loki thought, smiling a glassy smile.  _Someday soon, when I have you flat on your back in your bed, I will cut your throat all the way down to your backbone, you presumptuous lunatic, and I will listen very, very_ _actively to the sound of your life’s blood gushing out of you._

“I can see you’re still a little miffed.”  The Grandmaster stood up and brushed off the front of his robes.  “It’s… it’s not cute.  But you’re smart, right?  For your species generally, you’re smart?  You’ll figure out your game plan.”  He left Loki with a saucy wink and another polished bone smile.

What was even the point of his silence if the Grandmaster no longer had anything for him to listen to?  Was he just supposed to wander around this absurd palace in the hopes of finding someone to bore him to death?  And how long would this poisonous concoction last?

He scrubbed at his lips with the back of his hand to no avail.

What was his upside here?  That it had at least not tasted foul?  That his seduction was playing out as he had hoped—more or less—if the Grandmaster’s odd flirtation was to be believed?  At the moment, that wasn’t a persuasive argument.

He needed to be able to talk.  He despised being alone with himself.

Very well, then.  Being bored to death it was.  At least it would be a distraction.

He went out into the main reception hall.  There was always a party, even when there wasn’t; there were always people around, the halls thick with them, the Grandmaster king of an enormous anthill of twitching antennae trying to read the favor in the air, the outpour of sex and wine and money.  Sakaar stank a little, always.  Nervous sweat.  And now he knew he was no different.  No cleverer, because he had ended up with a bit between his teeth and no idea how to remove it.  No stronger, because he was still dancing to the Grandmaster’s tune.  His magic did nothing to lift whatever science or enchantment had stolen his voice.  He might as well be mortal.

Smart for his species.

He grabbed a drink off a passing tray and downed it, but it did nothing to quench the fire in his throat.  Well, he could get drunk, he supposed.  When he had worn Odin’s shape, he had always been careful with his wine, because he couldn’t afford a loosened tongue.  He could afford one now.  Obviously.

At least there was noise out here.  The prattle of the Grandmaster’s court was senseless and puerile, but it was sound.  He was even buttonholed by a few friendly faces who talked to him for several minutes without realizing he had said nothing back.  Fools.

The last thing he expected was to be cornered by that woman—what was her name?  Ah, no, that was it, she didn’t have one.  Scrapper 142, the Grandmaster called her.  He spoke highly of her, paid her well, and didn’t seem to demand anything from her she wouldn’t freely give him.  Loki hated her a little for that, for managing what he could not.  He’d thought the feeling mutual.

He raised his eyebrows.

“What’s the matter?” she said.  “Cat got your tongue?  Usually when you’re in the same room as me, all I’m thinking is how much I want you to shut up.”

Charming.

“Do this,” 142 said, and rubbed her lips together.  She had a full, well-formed mouth.  Loki had never seen her smile while she was sober.  He revised that: he had probably never seen her sober.

He didn’t know what was in it for him to obey her, but he did.  Heat flashed along his lips; a pulse.

“Ah.  Thought so.  If it’s any consolation, you’re not the first one he’s broken out that lip balm for.  It’s probably safe to say he’s past firsts all the way around, really.  I don’t know what you’re holding out for.  The Berellians make a ‘marital aid,’ I think they call it, they don’t do it halfway.”

What was she talking about?  It was odd—and unlikable—how flayed he felt around her, how flayed he was _required_ to be around her, for this to pass for conversation at all; he had to show her that he didn’t understand.

She sighed.  “He didn’t tell you how to turn it off.”  She pulled a flask from her belt, tilted it in his direction in an ironic toast, and then drank it dry.  “It’s a chemical-nanite hybrid.  Release gets triggered by the introduction of certain other chemicals and the exertion of certain muscles in a certain fashion.  It’s on the back of the box they came in.  I should know, I salvaged the damned things for him.  Berellians make all this shit, but they don’t tell you straight out what it is.  Lackey, you’re not getting a word out until you go down on someone.”

She had to be joking.

She shrugged.  “I mean, you can try flicking your tongue around a lot or deepthroating a banana a bit before you swallow your own come, if you want to experiment with some workarounds, but—body heat, pheromones, unique chemistry, muscle activity… it’s a well-constructed little drug.  Doesn’t discriminate, either.  Accepts a wide range of biologies.  Though in your case, given how you’ve been batting your eyelashes lately, I think it’s pretty safe to say who the boss intends to unlock you.”

Fuck.  He had no reason to disbelieve her—it was absurd, but also entirely in keeping with the Grandmaster’s usual methods.  And Sakaar was flooded with designer chemicals and sex toys.  Of course the Grandmaster had collected anything that filled the requirements of both.

So he would make his amends to the Grandmaster on his knees.  And afterwards, he would be able to talk again, able to use his words knowing he should use them with great care.  It wasn’t a permanent setback.  If the Grandmaster was dissatisfied with him right now, he would certainly not be so after Loki was through.

Unless Loki lost his patience and showed his teeth right then and there, to his own bloody satisfaction.

It was not the worst answer.  It was a destination he had been headed for already.

But, dammit, that move had been his to make, that pleasure his to choose to give.  He’d planned to pretend the Grandmaster had overcome his better judgment; simply driven him wild with lust.  And now he had nothing to give.  He would be practically begging for the Grandmaster’s cock, and yet even wanting it would give him no leverage, because the Grandmaster would know _why_.  He could stomach giving the Grandmaster a win, but he could not stand to be won.  The Grandmaster cared only about shine; what he won easily, he would discard quickly.  And Loki did not plan on going anywhere.

He looked at Scrapper 142.  Then, slowly, he let his eyes drift down and then up again.  She had the stance and bearing of a warrior, one strong enough to withstand years of being pickled in booze, and she stood beneath his gaze like it meant nothing to her.  Yes.  This could work.  He held out his hand to her, palm up.

She smirked.  “That’s your plan?  Sorry.  I bring the Grandmaster his toys, I don’t borrow them and take them out for a spin.  Especially not when he’s been waiting to play with them himself.”

But she had not walked away.

“Find someone else,” Scrapper 142 said.  “I’m serious, Lackey.  It’s a big place full of fuckable people who’ll be thrilled to help you out.”

He didn’t want them.  He wanted her.  He—trusted her, for a given value of trust.  She sold people, she didn’t sell information; she didn’t gossip.  The reward for her holding her tongue ought to be her having his, there was a symmetry to it.  And while he hated her, he was not annoyed by her, and he would far prefer to bed someone he hated than someone he simply couldn’t stand.  He had hated many people he’d thought highly of.

Scrapper 142 sighed.  “Fine.  Only because it’s been a few months since I’ve bothered to get laid properly.  Don’t think this means we’re friends.”

Why would it mean they were friends?  Neither one of them seemed like the “friends” type.

He followed her through the winding corridors, to a little room that needed a code for entry.  He memorized it, of course.  You never knew when you would need something.

It was a dark, dismal little cupboard, barely more than a hole.  It wasn’t a midden of filth—he had half-expected to find empty bottles littered about—but that was all the good that could be said of it.  It might have been warmer for the filth, even.  All it had was a single narrow bed with a locked trunk at its foot.  The exorbitant prices she charged the Grandmaster for her finds, she could have afforded better.  He would have even given her better for the asking, Loki was sure.   And she might have slept on that ramshackle ship of hers sometimes, but clearly not always—the covers here were in disarray—

Scrapper 142 closed the door behind them.  Her eyes forbade any questions, even if Loki had been able to ask them.

She took off her boots and her breeches and the scrap of undergarment and then sat on the edge of her bed, her palms flat against the mattress behind her.

“Well?” she said.

She was striking.  All the more so because she made no effort for him, only presented herself to be serviced, matter-of-factly bare against her covers, but not even undressed on top, as if he were not worth it.  This was transactional, her pose implied.  She was indifferent to him.  He had never been able to resist indifference; it had always made him burn.

The living flush of her against the dull gray sheets.  The wild triangle of dark curls between her spread legs, the faintly pink-touched brown of her exposed cunt, the peak of her clit.

Loki went to his knees at her feet.  He wanted some reaction from her, though he didn’t know what.  He kissed the inside of her thigh, the muscle strong beneath her warm skin, and then ventured up, taking his time before he pressed his lips to the top of her mound, to her dampened curls.  She smelled of salt and musk.  He sank down lower and breathed gently on her arousal-darkened folds, winning a twitch from her, and only then did he kiss her there, use his tongue against her stiffened clit.  The fire in his mouth had gone away.

He knew what he was doing, and at first he was determined that she would know it, too: he entered her with his tongue and then with his fingers, he took his time.  But he lost track of what he needed from her.  He wanted too, in the end.  He wanted this—a selfishness he knew he would not be able to have with the Grandmaster.  He could take pleasure here without calculation.

He wanted her, her specifically.  Someone who would not force him to his knees with a smile but would have him there still.  Someone who did not require his flattery or his schemes.

He made a sound against her cunt, desperate, and was shocked at himself, at the noise.  She was not.  She dug her heels into his back, pulling him closer, opening herself wider for him, and he obeyed her, had her as she would be had, holding her ass as she lifted it and simply letting her ride his mouth.  He felt dizzy.

She came without sound, only with a slight tensing of her body and then a gradual laxness, her feet falling back to the floor.

“Come up here, then,” she said, lying back, and he did, though the bed was too small for them both.  He was crowded up against her.  “You can talk again, right?”

He licked his lips and tasted her.  “Yes.”

“All right.”  She undid his clothes slowly and reached inside.  She began to stroke him.  There were calluses on all her fingertips and her palm.  “Talk, then.  Because you’re about to go to the boss, one way or another, and you’re not going to be able to say what you want to say.  So say it now.  I’m not listening anyway.”

“Generous of you.”  He sucked in a breath.  “I’m sure there’s nothing.”

“Suit yourself.”

Loki held out another moment, but another moment only: damn her, she was stripping his mind away from him and she wasn’t even looking at him.  “I need to be able to talk.  I can’t go without that, not again.  I’d rather he threw me in the fucking arena.”

“I don’t think he’s got that in the cards for you.”  So she was listening after all.  “And he will even less after he’s sampled the wares.  You’re good enough.”

He couldn’t help the hitch that put in his breathing; the flush it put in his face.  He held onto the sheets, which were coarse; his fingers brushed her bare skin.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Scrapper 142 continued.  Aptly, for someone supposedly not listening to him.  “He’ll only take your voice again if you say things he doesn’t want to hear.  You were trying to entertain him—I wouldn’t bother.  He likes a good show, but I think from you, there’s only one word he’s after.  You’re a smart boy.  You know what it is.”

“Yes.”  He gasped, his hips lifting involuntarily.  Norns, if only she would—

“That’s the one.”

“Please,” Loki said, and he turned his face to her; he didn’t know what he was asking for.  Not to come, because he could have already, he was trying not to.  He needed this haze to wrap around him forever, to keep him from seeing where he was, where he had been, what had happened.  “Please.”

There was a strand of hair matted to her face by sweat.  Her eyes were intent, dark.  Not quite merciless.

“You’re okay,” she said awkwardly.  Distantly, as if she were already somewhere else in her mind, wanting to drink away the memory of him.  “You’ll be okay.  You can live through a lot before you die from it.”

*

Scrapper 142 had told him the truth: it was a big place full of fuckable people.  Loki had no trouble quietly securing a second liaison for that afternoon: a cerulean skinned man with a cock that would have made a fine enough weapon in its own right.  Loki cast a bauble of magic up into the air behind him and controlled it carefully as he used every considerable bit of skill in his even more considerable repertoire.  He did filthy, depraved things.  By the end of their time together, the cerulean-skinned man, less stoic by far than the scrapper, tearfully told Loki he loved him.

It was so nice to be appreciated.

Loki sauntered into the Grandmaster’s private chambers like he owned them.  Scrapper 142’s warning lingered in his ears: _From you, there’s only one word he’s after._ She was right, undoubtedly.  But he would say it on as close to his own terms as he could.

“Bold,” the Grandmaster said.  “A little—what’s the word?—a little minxy.  But I like it.  As a strictly one-time thing, I like it.  Should I assume from this that you’ve figured out the relevant off-switch?”  He made a puerile kissy-face at Loki.

“You should,” Loki said calmly.

The Grandmaster’s mouth went flat.  The mood around him drew in: Loki had felt this before with him, but only once, and he would just as soon have gone the rest of his life without it.  It was like a black hole had opened up.

“Now, precious,” the Grandmaster said, “you knew who was meant to fix that for you.”

“But my friend,” Loki said, fighting against the pull to drop down then and there, to bare his throat, to kiss the Grandmaster’s boots, to give him all, to do whatever else that uncanny pull wanted him to do, “I thought we were enjoying our flirtation.  My feelings were so wounded when I found you felt you had to maneuver or manipulate me into… such pleasures as I’d only been temporarily reserving.  I love anticipation, you see.  But if it’s my mouth you want, Grandmaster, I will give it to you most wholeheartedly.  I just thought you might like a preview of what’s to come.”

The feeling of imminent disaster began to ebb.  The Grandmaster smiled.  Less a scrimshaw blade of a grin now and more the way a dog would grin when it was about to salivate over some particularly delicious morsel.  Which was what he wanted, wasn’t it?

“You have my attention,” the Grandmaster said.  “I’m _devastated_ to have hurt your feelings.  You know, there’s a volcano a few hundred miles north of here, it’s yours.  I’ll have the deed transferred to your account.”

“You have marvelous taste in gifts.”

“Don’t I?  Let’s hope you do too.”

“You won’t be disappointed,” Loki said.  He conjured up the bauble again; with a flick of his fingers, it began projecting his previous encounter out in front of them.

“Ooh, magic.  That’s cute.  And that’s—that’s a little more than cute.  That’s a four-alarm fire.  Wow, you can really just take it, can’t you?  You’re a natural.  I know I’m impressed.”

“I should hope so,” Loki said, in what he could only describe as an oily purr.  The things he did to win, when the odds were against him, the humiliations he bore.  “I can see you’re enjoying it.  Why don’t you watch, Grandmaster, while we… reenact?”

“Mm, that’s tempting, that’s really tempting, but, but follow me on this.  If you’re on the ground—like so—I can’t watch you and your adorable little home movie at the same time, because it’s like I’m looking down and then I’m looking up, down, up, down, up.  I would just get dizzy.  And you do make me dizzy, sweetums, you do, but maybe not like that.”  He settled himself back on his ornate chair, reclining his with his arms on the armrests and a smirk on his face.  “What I’m thinking is, why don’t you hop that gorgeous ass of yours onto my lap?  Well, I say lap.  I’m being euphemistic.  Lube’s in the—I don’t really know where it is in here.  Topaz!”

Topaz came in from the far archway.  She looked like walking in on this particular setup—a projected Loki enthusiastically sucking someone’s cock, a real Loki standing stricken before the cat-in-the-cream Grandmaster—was what she did all day every day and she was starting to be tired of it.  “What?”

“Lubricant,” the Grandmaster said with unusual succinctness.

She produced something and tossed it to him.

“You’re the best.  Give yourself a raise.”  When the door closed behind her, the Grandmaster said to Loki, “Isn’t she the best?  Six warlords I had to kill in order to get her.  Competition for Topaz is just like you, Loki, what is that, it’s _fierce_.  Now, where were we?”

 _In the process of denying me my victory_ , Loki thought.  But the Grandmaster’s expression was only enthusiastic.  There was hard-edged playfulness here, no doubt, but not full suspicion.  Not yet.  The situation could be salvaged.  He had come out of worse situations, and fuck it, he’d worn a crown at the end of them.  He would sit in that chair, too.  If he just kept moving, if he just kept talking, if he just kept thinking enough to keep from feeling, he would have all he could rightly ask for.  All he deserved.

He unbuckled his belt.  “I believe,” he said, “that you were about to ask me to start that recording over from the beginning.  Anticipation is key, remember.  We want to take our time, don’t we?  I’m sure you can last.”

“Ooh, you’re such a tease,” the Grandmaster said with real delight.  He tugged Loki over to him and nibbled at his neck.  “I like it.  You’re going places, you really are, you know that?  I love this, don’t you love this?”

Loki knew his lines.  He closed his eyes and thought of Scrapper 142.

“Yes,” he said.


End file.
